So here it is 6:30 a.m. on an Iowa Sunday and, rather than accomplishing anything useful, I've been switching from live feed to live feed since about 4:30 a.m., watching as Hurricane Irma makes landfall in the Keys, preparing to move up into the Florida mainland.
And concluding that (1) most Iowans haven't a clue about what it's like to contend with tropical storms. Our weather systems move in and out much more rapidly. And the Chariton River, while it can turn mean, lacks storm surge potential.
But (2) if Chariton were lifted up and plopped down on one of the keys, a substantial share of the population would decline to flee and just hunker down, too.
Occasional views of the damage Irma caused down its Caribbean pathway pop up. It's important to remember that our own glittering resort mecca is not the center of the weather universe or, actually, of any universe except of those who live there.
Of course human-related climate change is a factor in our changing weather patterns. To think otherwise is just not especially bright. It's called science, stupid.
And it will be only a matter of time before crazed preachers climb out of their bunkers to claim they prayed the storm away from areas where little damage occurred and that God punished everyone else because of something or another related to the gays. This is inevitable.
In the mean time, positive thoughts to everyone I know and don't know in Florida and father down Hurricane Irma's path of destruction. We're thinking about you, at times almost obsessively.
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